Marie Mattsson

The mist still hangs thick between the tree trunks as Marie Mattsson leaves home with her camera slung over her shoulder. Outside the door lies the Delsjö area, a hilly natural landscape in western Gothenburg that is about as close to wilderness as you can get in the midst of the city’s pulse.

Her sights are set on one of the nearby trails, a favourite haunt for several of the forest’s foxes, and when she arrives she lies down in the damp ditch to wait, perfectly still. One hour passes. Two hours pass. Three hours pass. And finally – the reward! The feeling when the first fox pads silently onto the trail is almost reverent.

“It doesn’t matter how many times I head out, every time is a completely new experience. There are always new things to discover, it simply never ends.”

The Delsjö area largely rests on an ancient bedrock plateau, with ridges rising up to 140 metres above sea level. Here, across the 1,370-hectare area, old oaks and towering pines stand side by side with rift valleys, gleaming lakes, marshland and swamp forests. This is also where Marie Mattsson has captured most of her most cherished nature motifs – from misty treetops and beautifully lined birch trunks to the forest’s rich wildlife.

“Almost all my pictures are taken within a radius of three kilometres from my home, and I almost always photograph on foot. For me, it’s important to show nature that is accessible to many people; I want people to be able to relate to my pictures. One of my most popular motifs features a robin that anyone might spot during a walk in the woods.” 

For Marie, it is second nature, but behind her images lie many years of experience, great patience and an ability, forgotten by many, to read the weather and nature’s shifts.

“I have family in Lapland, and I think my patience comes from my northern Swedish heritage. I’m happy for things to move a little slowly, and there isn’t all that much action in my images,” says Marie with a laugh.

She continues:
“I’ve learned what the landscape looks like at a certain temperature and how the light moves at different times of day in different parts of the forest. You gain an incredible amount of knowledge from spending a lot of time in nature.”

For almost seven years now, Marie has worked as a marketing coordinator at Nordens Ark, a non-profit foundation that works to give endangered animals a future. But her career began at a completely different end of the spectrum.

“When I was little, I loved art and I loved nature. But it wasn’t until quite late on that I realised I could combine those different interests. I trained as a graphic designer and spent the first part of my career working at production companies, mainly with advertising.”

She describes herself as an idealist, and after a while something began to gnaw at her.

“I started questioning what I was doing and felt that I wanted to do something with purpose and meaning. Something that contributes to society in some way.”

Nature photography entered Marie’s life even earlier than that, 15 years ago, when she needed a breathing space and something to immerse herself in during a difficult time in life.

“It was when my mother passed away. I wanted to distract myself with something, so a friend and I started photographing abandoned buildings. In those old houses, we found different animal tracks, and I especially remember the moment I spotted an owl in a broken window.”

Since then, she has spent almost all her free time in nature, and photographing it has come to mean more than simply taking beautiful pictures. It has become a way of conveying just how important nature really is – to all of us. That is why she is especially happy that several of her images can now move into people’s homes in the form of mural wallpapers that are as magnificent as they are harmonious.

“I was so happy when I received this request from Boråstapeter! Nature is in our genes, and I believe we become calm when we have it around us, even on the walls of our homes. Many people have lost touch with nature, and I want to help people feel a stronger connection to it again. If you care about nature and what grows there, you will take care of it too.”

The love of nature is visible not only in her images, but also in the words she chooses to describe it. There is almost a sense of reverence in her voice when she speaks about nature, and it is clear that it holds great meaning for her on several levels. A recurring theme in Marie’s images is mist, whether it hovers among the treetops, dances between the trunks or lies heavy over the lake.

“At heart, I am a forest person, and there is something deeply romantic, beautiful and mysterious about mist. Misty mornings are magical, and then comes the moment when the sun begins to rise and the rays finally break through – it becomes like a sea of gold! Those are moments you carry with you for years afterwards.”

If you could give one piece of advice to someone who wants to start seeing nature through your eyes – what would you say?

“You need to stay connected to nature to understand why it matters. Go out into the forest early in the morning without headphones in your ears. Listen and try to put into words what you feel, what you hear and how it smells. The most important thing you can do is simply open your eyes to nature and take it in.”